I have a tendency to borrow books from people and then move to a new city / country / continent without giving them back. I don't even do it on purpose, I just forget about it until it's too late.

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There's a trick to that. Take a Post-It and write their name on it, then stick it in the front page of the book, sticking out just slightly at the top. That way you can easily know "this is a borrowed book" and then open it to find who it belongs to.

The sticky notes thing might work, however I am prone to attach a lot of those to the books that belong to me, too...you know, to mark pages and passages that seem important, or that I'll need to remember for my research....

I should make lists. Seriously, people never ask for their stuff back, and from time to time I find myself on a different continent entirely, picking up a book and wondering "when the hell did I buy this one?" Sigh.

The sticky notes thing might work, however I am prone to attach a lot of those to the books that belong to me, too...you know, to mark pages and passages that seem important, or that I'll need to remember for my research....

I should make lists. Seriously, people never ask for their stuff back, and from time to time I find myself on a different continent entirely, picking up a book and wondering "when the hell did I buy this one?" Sigh.

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Would it help to use sticky notes with another color? Say, purple if it's borrowed from somebody else? And then you know right away, if it's purple, it's not yours. Green, yellow, pink, orange, and blue for your research/other stuff.

^ Yeah, devote one specific stickie note color for the purpose. Also, you can use those short ones that work so well for bookmarks. Just make it so that if there's one on the first page in your color of choice, you know right away that it's a borrowed book.

^ Yeah, devote one specific stickie note color for the purpose. Also, you can use those short ones that work so well for bookmarks. Just make it so that if there's one on the first page in your color of choice, you know right away that it's a borrowed book.

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You know what? I'm gonna go buy multi-coloured sticky notes tomorrow and set myself to the task of sorting out my library this weekend.

It will require some hard thinking, as some books have been in my possession so long, I don't even remember borrowing them...